Leo India is on a winning spree having won the 'Agency of the Year' title at Spikes Asia as well as the Effie Awards.

In conversation with Manifest (full conversation in the March issue) Rajdeepak Das, CCO, Publicis Groupe - South Asia, and chairperson, Leo - South Asia, explained what's been different for the agency over the last year and a few months.

"2025 was a tough year for businesses and the industry. Given that, agencies needs to work harder for clients to make sure that they are doing justice to every project or the brand that one has. In that process, the spread of work increases drastically. That is what was magical for Leo. This year, we had more campaigns for more brands that ended up winning, whether they were Bronze, Silver or Gold. When one is winning a Grand Prix or Grand Effie, they are very important too, but it usually means a couple of projects that are very good and very big."

He added, "We have been winning for work done on the likes of Spotify, Acko, Whisper, and Lay’s consistently over the last few years. This year, the spread increased. Going back to the point about the world getting tougher – it’s like when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. I say it’s about making lemon pickle, and that’s what we did."

Das goes back eight years ago to state that's when the agency's processes were tightened which is bearing fruit.

"In 2018, the world laughed at us when we decided not to be at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity at a group level globally. We put our focus on AI and launched Marcel. We thought it was better to invest money in our people and the ecosystem then. We had Epsilon come into our life (acquired in 2019) after our investment in Sapient. Everyone’s talking about AI now. In 2018, Publicis started talking about it with Marcel, with Microsoft powering it," he stated.

With the wins coming thick and fast, there's a perception that Leo and Das have excelled in writing case studies.

Clearing the air about that, Das, said, "Thank you for asking me this question, because many people have brought this up in conversation. The fact is that we do good work that others don’t, and so the cases are good! One can’t do good cases when the work isn’t good. Cases are the result of the excitement one has while creating the work. It’s about bringing that out to someone who wasn’t in the room when it was being created. It’s not about bringing out the cold execution, but why it was thought of and the process etc. I have never seen an agency with shit work and great cases that have won at award shows. There has to be some substance and scale."

Read our full chat with Das and a special focus on Leo in the March issue. Get it here.